Watching The Watchers: How AI Is Keeping An Eye On Security Guards
8 min read
Security guarding may seem safe from automation, yet Sophie Church finds employers are increasingly using surveillance tools to monitor their employees
Patrolling office spaces into the early hours, manning supermarket doors and responding to emergencies, security guard roles have so far resisted automation. But evolving technology is now changing the industry – and not for the better.
While AI may not yet be capable of replacing security guard jobs, The House has found that employers are increasingly using technology to put workers – hired to monitor their surroundings – under surveillance themselves.
Cash-in-transit companies, for example, are using AI-enhanced cameras within the cab to detect weariness in their drivers. Unlike traditional dashcams, AI facial recognition technology can detect when a driver is yawning or rubbing their eyes in real time. It then pings an alert to the driver, prompting them to concentrate. The footage will upload in real-time for fleet managers to watch at base.
The House has learned that insurers are now urging businesses to use surveillance technology on their drivers, because it could make their policies cheaper. “There is increasing pressure from insurance companies to have some degree of monitoring internally,” says Eamon O’Hearn, national officer at trade union GMB.
In one case, he says: “The insurance company was effectively pressuring one company to introduce it in lieu of another security measure, which seemed a bit odd. But it might well be that this is just becoming, again, a baseline requirement for cheaper insurance.”
The adoption of cab monitoring technology does not seem to be driven by road safety concerns, as accidents involving cash-in-transit vehicles are uncommon. According to police figures, there were 176 road fatalities in collisions involving all light goods vehicles in 2024. The data does not catch which of these, if any, involved cash-in-transit vehicles, but the total was 10 per cent down on the previous year.
If not to enhance road safety, what might be the purpose of such tech? Some security guards argue that the surveillance tools already in use are empowering employers to mistreat their workers.
One long-term security guard tells The House that he came upon a thief earlier this year and, activating his body-worn camera immediately, made a citizen’s arrest. The police arrived shortly after and thanked him for his efforts. But when the security system installation service working with his employer reviewed the footage from his bodycam, he was charged with insubordination and excessive use of force.
This was not the first time his employer had misused body-worn recordings, he claims. On another occasion, footage from a colleague’s camera showed his uniform askew. He was then pulled into a meeting with the security system installation service’s supervisor.
The guard says he had an “impeccable record for two years” before his employer opened a contract with the company. “I always thought body-worn cameras were for safety and evidential reasons, not for this sort of criticism,” he tells The House. He has since been signed off by his doctor for mental rest due to “unprecedented stress and work pressure”.
Colleagues are almost like guinea pigs for this technology
Just as supermarket self-checkouts were first touted as an assistance to human work, not a replacement, there may be an element of “technology creep” among security companies, says O’Hearn of the GMB.
“Companies are working out: ‘What do we think is the minimum staffing requirement we can get away with?’
“What worries us is that companies are being approached by technology companies and being sold stuff off the shelf without any real understanding about what that monitoring does – let alone those that are driven with a degree of AI and algorithmic learning,” O’Hearn says. “Colleagues are almost like guinea pigs for this technology.”
CCTV is also being weaponised by colleagues looking to get ahead. Daniel Garnham, general secretary of the Security Industry Federation, tells The House that people working in high-end London hotels have told them,“‘Look, we’ve been told that we were seen on CCTV doing this or doing that, or it’s been brought up as part of a probationary meeting.’”
These exclusive hotels – which demand spotless uniforms and strict punctuality – are where members have told Garnham that “privacy is not being respected”.
This blurring of lines is enabling “middle managers” to use CCTV to alert their bosses when they perceive their colleagues to be slacking. Security guards have been called out for getting their phones out of their pockets, or taking their breaks at the wrong times, for example.
“We get a lot of middle managers that want to make a name for themselves,” he adds. “The way to do that is to annoy the workers below them and show their bosses that they are being proactive.”
A different security guard from the one quoted above, who also wishes to remain anonymous, works in corporate security. One day, while on a break, he went to use the toilet. A few hours later, he returned to the same facilities and found a colleague had hung toilet paper between the bowl and the lid. “The reason he did that was to test to see if I would lift that seat up, to test who was using the toilet or not,” the guard says.
The guard believes his colleague had used ‘access codes’ to track him through the building from the control room. These codes log each time a guard uses their key fob to enter a new part of the building.
On a separate occasion, a colleague berated the guard for smoking in certain areas, though this colleague had never seen him smoking in person. “He couldn’t say that he saw me on the cameras, because he realised how psycho that was,” the guard says. “He was micro-managing me over nothing.
“Everyone’s so paranoid of each other in this part of the business,” he adds. “I don’t want to do this anymore; it hurts. It’s not good for your mental health.”
A third security guard, who works in Belfast, says their security cameras feed through to another employee working in Devon. “I personally would get a text from the said person saying ‘Oh, are they my favourite biscuits?’ when someone had dropped some in minutes before.”
“We had a night supervisor stick his feet up on the table – no sooner had he done it they were on the phone asking to put the feet down,” he adds.
Surveilling workers is not illegal, although according to government guidance, employers should explain where staff will be monitored in their contracts. Bosses should make clear whether personal calls are allowed, and what constitutes a reasonable number. Employers would only be in breach of the Data Protection Act if they monitor employees in certain places.
“It only becomes illegal when they’re doing things that are intrusive – what you would normally expect the police or law enforcement agencies to be doing,” says Garnham.
But workers say their employers are failing to consult them where they are being monitored.
“We do get watched, and the workspace team ask the other guards to watch and send them clips of CCTV,” says a fourth security guard. “They also use it against the cleaning team, who are not the same employer as mine.
“I have issues with their lack of knowledge about privacy rules at work and their GDPR knowledge. I refuse to use CCTV for surveillance other than for the hours I work, and tell them that they cannot use it without the consent of the person they are wanting to record and monitor.”
CCTV workers are required to hold a license for the role from the Security Industry Authority. Where they are without a license, yet observing their colleagues, Garnham has the power to act.
The government pledged that proposals to introduce surveillance technologies would be “subject to consultation and negotiation” in its Make Work Pay agreement, first published in October last year.
“We’re arguing for, and have been for some time, a consultation, negotiation and agreement on the introduction of surveillance tools to the workplace,” says Adam Cantwell-Corn, policy lead on artificial intelligence and technology policy at the Trades Union Congress.
The House understands consultation of this kind will be included as a measure in the final Make Work Pay agreement.
Unions are also calling for proper enforcement of GDPR rules. “One of the reasons why it’s a little difficult to understand the scale of this is that most workers don’t know what is happening in full,” says Cantwell-Corn.
Under Labour, workers rights are to be enhanced. But with technology developing so rapidly, there is a grudging acceptance that digital surveillance is now just a feature of everyday life.
“If I was a security worker, I wouldn’t like it. I don’t want to be knowing that every time I walk past a camera, someone’s potentially watching everything I do,” says Garnham. “But we live in this digital world now, where that is part of everywhere we go.”
